• Students begin to read and write in a conventional way; they begin to read text and their writing becomes readable.

• At the beginning of the Stage: Children may only segment and represent beginning and final consonant sounds.

• At the end of the stage: Children have full awareness (able to isolate tricky vowels and pull apart blends).

• Needs scaffolding.

 

Reading

• Concept of word in text: The ability to track or finger point to read a memorized text without getting off track on a two syllable word.

• Rudimentary: Can point to and track words in a memorized text.

• Firm: Finger point- read accurately.

• Sight word learning: Words that are stored completely enough in memory to be recognizes automatically and consistently in and do to of context.

• Partial alphabetic reader: know about consonants but lack knowledge needs to sound out words

• High frequency words: most commonly occurring words in a text.

 

Fluency

• Beginning readers read slowly; do not have enough sight words.

• Later readers are able to read aloud fluently.

• Should be encouraged to read.

 

Writing

• Similar patterns of disfluency in beginning writing.

• Writing is usually readable to anyone who understands the logic of their letter name strategy.

• Continue to model writing for a variety of purposes.

• Students need to write for themselves and spell the best they can.

• Journal writing, letters to friends, observations, predictions, etc.

• Teachers may dictate sentences for students to write.

 

Vocab learning

• Quality and quantity of vocab growth depends on richness and frequency of verbal interactions with peers and adults.

• There is a tremendous gap between children who come from literature homes and those who do not.

• Activities: Read alouds, interactive readings, retelling, etc.

• Sophisticated synonyms: Teachers looks for, gradually teach and use synonyms for common language in everyday routines.

• Consciously elevate language.

• Enrich simple test: Simple, predictable text uses word with meanings students may not know.

• Teachers infuse more vocab as the story is discussed using alternative words.

• Discussing illustrations benefits ELL’s (look up synonyms).

• Studying cognates.

• Concept sorts: Expand vocab and encourage rich verbal conversations.

• Model and us language of “compare/contrast.”

 

Orthographic Development

• Letter names: Students use their knowledge of names of the letters in the alphabet to spell phonetically or alphabetically.

• May leave out vowels/spell alphabetically.

• Letter sounds: children learn letter sounds that include the sound sin their names more easily than letters whose names do not match sound.

• Letter Name: Students rely not only on what they hear in letter names, but also how letters are articulated in the mouth.

 

Articulation

• Letter name-alphabetic students rely not only on what they hear in letter names, but also how letters are articulated in the mouth.

• Called afficates: formed by forcing air through a small closure at the roof of the mouth to create a feeling of friction.

 

Vowels

• Voiced vs unvoiced.

• Vowels are tricky because they are not felt as easy in the mouth as consonants.

• Through word study students start to learn the patter that short vowels follow: CVC, VCE, CVVC, etc.

• Diagraph: Two letters that represent a single sound.

• Blends: A spelling unit of two or three consonants that retain their identity when pronounced.

• Nasals that come before the final consonants: preconsonatal nasals.

• Consonants influence the vowel.

 

Sequence and Pacing of Word Study

• Analytic approach begins with whole words and breaks them down to the phonics.

• Synthetic approach teaches vowel sounds and consonants.

• Whole-to-part approach.

• Early-middle-late.

• Pacing.

• Sequence.

 

Reading Instruction

• With poor sight vocabulary, reading is difficulty for children so they need support.

• Text Support: Providing the student with predictable texts.

• Teacher Support: Choral reading or echo reading.

• Support Reading: Text and teacher support.

• Teach sight words.

• Sight Word Learning: Word banks/ personal readers.

 

The Study of Consonant Sounds

• Initial consonants.

• Blends.

• Beginning of consonant blends (studied with picture sorts).

• Early stage students can isolate a single consonant sounds, but may not be able to correspond the sound to the letter.

• Final consonant blends: not studied in word families.

• Preconsonantal nasals: studied in word families.

 

Word Families

• Phonograms: Groups of rhyming words.

• Rime: The rhyming part of the word that comes after the vowel.

• Onset: the part of the word that comes before the vowel.

• CVC Pattern.

• Dividing words into onsets and rimes makes it easier to break the word into phonemes.

• Focus on the same vowel for word families.

 

R Influenced Vowels

• Look as though they follow the CVC pattern but do not have short sounds for ‘a’ and ‘o.’

• Teach students ‘ar,’ ‘an’ or ‘as’ patterns or chunks.

 

Assessing and Monitoring Students

• The goal is to get firm concept of a word in text.

• The student should be adding more words to their sight vocab.

• They should know how to decode two syllable words.

• A spelling inventory pretest is recommended to see where students are on the spectrum.

• When the student is in the early stages they will leave out vowels and blends.

• Weekly spelling tests are recommended.

 

Word Study with ELL Students

• Most other languages do not have as many vowel sounds, single consonants, or as many blends.

• Need time to learn to read and pronounce new sounds, segment the sounds, and learn the letter correspondence.

• Spanish Speakers: Omit ending consonant sounds (less phonemes in general).

 

Vocabulary Activities

• Anchored Vocab Instruction.

• Think pair share.

• Books and concept sorts.

• Creative Dramatics.

• Thematic units on animals as a starting point for concept sorts.

• Beginning-middle-end find phonemes in sound boxes.

• Soundboards
   

Study of Initial Consonant Sounds Activities

Hunts; bingo; match; word hunts

 

Study of Word Families Activities

Build, blend, extend; word family wheels and flip charts; show me; word maker; roll the dice; rhyming families; go fish

 

Study of Short Vowels Activities

Hopping frog; making words with cube games; follow the picture spelling; slide a word; pull in an m or n (preconsonantal nasals)